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A Bachelor's Degree in Atheism

California's Pitzer College decides to investigate the phenomenon of unbelief.

By

Alan Jacobs

Updated May 20, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

One could respond in several ways to the news that California's Pitzer College is starting a department of "secular studies" and creating a major in the field. Religious believers may see another sign of encroaching, well, secularism on American campuses. Conversely, just as the rise of religious studies—as opposed to theology—happened when religious belief was in precipitous decline among academics, perhaps the rise of secular studies indicates that secularism is a fading enterprise.